Copyrighted Material RAMPAGE NATION Property of Prometheus Books Unauthorized Reproduction or Distribution is Strictly Prohibited Rampage Nation.indd 1 6/14/16 12:37 PM Copyrighted Material Property of Prometheus Books Unauthorized Reproduction or Distribution is Strictly Prohibited Rampage Nation.indd 2 6/14/16 12:37 PM Copyrighted Material LOUIS KLAREVAS RAMPAGE NATION SECURING AMERICA FROM MASS SHOOTINGS Property of Prometheus Books Unauthorized Reproduction or Distribution is Strictly Prohibited Rampage Nation.indd 3 6/14/16 12:37 PM Copyrighted Material Published 2016 by Prometheus Books Rampage Nation: Securing America from Mass Shootings. Copyright © 2016 by Louis Klarevas. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, elec- tronic, mechanical, photocopy ing, re cord ing, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Cover image © Getty Images Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht Cover design © Prometheus Books Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Prometheus Books recognizes all registered trademarks, trademarks, and service marks mentioned in the text. Every attempt has been made to trace accurate ownership of copyrighted material in this book. Errors and omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions, provided that notification is sent to the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to Pro me the us Books 59 John Glenn Drive Amherst, New York 14228 VOICE: 716–691–0133 FAX: 716–691–0137 WWW.PROMETHEUSBOOKS.COM 20 19 18 17 16 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Klarevas, Louis, author. PropertyTitle: Rampage nation : securingof Prometheus America from mass shootings / by LouisBooks Klarevas. Description: Amherst, New York : Prometheus Books, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016011430 (print) | LCCN 2016018097 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633880665 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781633880672 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Gun control—United States. | Firearms ownership—United States. | Violent crimes—United States—Prevention. | Mass murder—United States—Prevention. Classification: LCC HV7436 .K53 2016 (print) | LCC HV7436 (ebook) | DDC 364.4/0450973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016011430 Printed in the United States of America Unauthorized Reproduction or Distribution is Strictly Prohibited Rampage Nation.indd 4 6/14/16 12:37 PM Copyrighted Material For Rada Property of Prometheus Books Unauthorized Reproduction or Distribution is Strictly Prohibited Rampage Nation.indd 5 6/14/16 12:37 PM Copyrighted Material Property of Prometheus Books Unauthorized Reproduction or Distribution is Strictly Prohibited Rampage Nation.indd 6 6/14/16 12:37 PM Copyrighted Material CONTENTS Preface 9 Acknowledgments 13 PART 1: PROBLEM Chapter One: Sandy Hook 17 Chapter Two: The Beginning of Wisdom 31 Chapter Three: A Growing Threat 49 PART 2: PROBE Chapter Four: Unstable, Angry, Armed Men 89 Chapter Five: No Place Is Safe 131 PropertyChapter Six: Guns Kill,of Some Prometheus More Than Others Books183 PART 3: PRESCRIPTION Chapter Seven: Breaking the Trinity 229 Chapter Eight: The Bad Man’s Awe 249 Chapter Nine: The New Normal 267 7 Unauthorized Reproduction or Distribution is Strictly Prohibited Rampage Nation.indd 7 6/14/16 12:37 PM Copyrighted Material 8 CONTENTS Appendix: A Theoretical Profile of Seung Hui Cho: From the Perspective of a Forensic Behavioral Scientist, By Roger L. Depue, PhD 271 Postscript 277 Notes 279 Index 363 Property of Prometheus Books Unauthorized Reproduction or Distribution is Strictly Prohibited Rampage Nation.indd 8 6/14/16 12:37 PM Copyrighted Material PREFACE n 2003, a lone gunman tried to shoot me, my cousin, and four of Iour friends as we were sitting at a taverna on the Greek island of Ikaria. The violent events of that evening were set in motion several hours earlier. After an entire day of binge drinking, a local fisherman drove his car through the narrow public square where we were enjoying dinner, bumping several chairs and tables. While no one was hurt, his recklessness drew the ire of numerous patrons. Following a few exchanges of boisterous threats, he departed for his house. An hour later, driving a pickup truck this time, he raced through the same space, forcing the dozen or so of us who were still at the taverna to jump from our seats and take cover as he smashed through several chairs en route to the nearby marina. Within minutes, we heard the distinct putt-putt-putt-putt of his caique’s diesel motor as he sailed away. We knew that he had inherited a second house from his late father, which was located about twenty minutes away by boat; so we presumed he was heading there to sleep it off. We were wrong. After about an hour, he was back. Driving his pickup at a high rate of speed, he pulled up on the one group that was still left at the taverna—my group. Jamming his Propertybrakes right in front of of us,Prometheus he grabbed a vintage shotgun Books that was resting on the passenger seat. My friend, seeing the gunman maneu- vering to get the weapon around the steering wheel and out the driver’s side window, lunged toward the truck, allowing him to grab the barrel just as it was positioned to shoot. Standing about fifteen to twenty feet behind the truck, I saw a flash of bright light and heard a thunder reminiscent of cannon fire as my friend pushed the barrel upward and to the side at the precise moment the gunman pulled the trigger, causing the blast to go off- 9 Unauthorized Reproduction or Distribution is Strictly Prohibited Rampage Nation.indd 9 6/14/16 12:37 PM Copyrighted Material 10 PREFACE target. My friend yanked the shotgun from the shooter’s hands and began to smash it on the pavement. It was then that, through the rear cab window, I saw the driver reach for something behind his seat. I was frozen in disbelief; the next few seconds felt like time moving in slow motion. “He’s got another weapon! He’s got another weapon!” Yelling at the top of my lungs, I bolted toward the truck. My cousin, who was watching our friend take his frustration out on the first gun, turned around just in time to grab the second gun before the driver could point it out of the cab. As my cousin tried to wrestle the weapon away from the shooter, I opened the passenger- side door and reached in to grab a hold of him. Wrapping my hands around his neck, I was able to dig my fingers into his throat. Over- whelmed, he released the shotgun—which my cousin pulled out through the driver’s side window—and punched the accelerator, forcing me to let go. It was over. The gunman had fled and no one was seriously injured. Afterward, as we were trying to make sense of what had just hap- pened while waiting for the police to arrive, one of my friends sug- gested, “We had a guardian angel looking out for us.” Did we really? For years, the incident haunted me. Why did this person go on a rampage? What did we do to warrant being the target of his rage? And most important of all, how was it that not a single one of us was Propertyseriously wounded? of Prometheus Books The more I played out the incident in my head, the more I relayed it to others, and the more I analyzed it, the more I realized that our good fortune that evening had nothing to do with any sort of divine intervention. ✯ ✯ ✯ The gunman was ultimately convicted of attempted murder and received a stiff sentence by Greek standards: seven years in prison. The judge’s decision not to show much leniency was partly related to the shooter’s violent past. As I learned after the shooting, the per- Unauthorized Reproduction or Distribution is Strictly Prohibited Rampage Nation.indd 10 6/14/16 12:37 PM Copyrighted Material PREFACE 11 petrator had a history of physical altercations and at one point even tried to cut out his girlfriend’s tongue with a knife. The amateur psychologist in me concluded that this guy had the hallmarks of a sociopath. Of course, while some sociopaths occasionally engage in vio- lence—even mass violence—that didn’t fully explain why he chose to come after us that evening. I always suspected that catching hell from his fellow villagers as he recklessly drove through the pedestrian path provoked him. But even that still left one question unanswered for me: Why did this guy, who had no history of gun violence, take up arms that night? In particular, it struck me as odd that he went to the trouble of traveling to his late father’s place by boat to grab his firearms so that he could shoot us. If he wanted to harm us, why not just run us over with his pickup truck? He certainly had an opportu- nity to do so when he burst through the public square en route to his caique. Even though many of us jumped out of the way, he easily could have hit several people by driving down one of the sides of the path, rather than through the middle. Something no doubt primed him to think guns. As it turned out, he didn’t have a history of gun violence because he never owned firearms—until he inherited his father’s shotguns a few years earlier. He finally resorted to gun vio- lence because he could. Why us, though? What did we do to him that he wanted us dead? The simple answer: Nothing.